Gabon orders minimum service during strikes

Gabon has ordered the provision of a minimum service during work stoppages in several sectors of the economy.

The government of strike-prone Gabon has ordered the provision of a minimum service during work stoppages in several sectors of the economy, in a decree published Friday.

The pro-government daily L'Union said that the ''concerned companies are those whose social usefulness makes them vital,'' including hospitals, schools, electricity and water supply companies and pharmacies.

The list also includes most aspects of the hydrocarbons and mining sectors in the oil-rich equatorial African country, along with the telephone industry, air traffic control, waste treatment, and hotels, ports and banks.

In recent years, strikes have become recurrent in Gabon, a country of fewer than 1.5 million people, usually over pay and conditions. The education and health sectors were badly affected for several months in 2008 and 2009.

In 2008, a strike paralysed Shell-Gabon and an oil terminal run by the Anglo-Dutch firm and used by several other oil companies. The late president Omar Bongo Ondimba intervened personally to end that dispute.

In May 2009, the government, employers and trade unions signed an agreement to ''keep the social peace'' for 30 months. This accord was rejected by two of the major unions in the education sector, whose members were then on strike.